


Goodbye Theseus

by Anonymous



Category: Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Short One Shot, character respawn, philza minecraft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-19 01:03:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29866800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: The Blood God, and the consequences of fickle attachments.
Relationships: Wilbur Soot & Technoblade & TommyInnit & Phil Watson
Kudos: 42
Collections: Anonymous





	Goodbye Theseus

Techno kneels before the mountainside. It’s cold. Snow sticks to his trousers, soaking the skin beneath, and the wind batters his unkempt braid through the wind, but he does not care.

Three rocks lie before him. Each a dedication, each a marker to point out exactly where he had failed, every wrongdoing he’d committed. Where he had been weak, and suffered the consequences promptly. 

_The almighty Blood God can’t even keep three mortals alive._

“Well,” he says, voice still hoarse from screaming. There is still blood beneath his fingernails, stained along the blade of his sword.

He’d made them pay, only far too late. 

_Do you feel better?_

“I killed them all,” he says. “Most of them are down to their last lives. Dream is dead. I did what I could.”

_Do you feel better?_

“No.” He answers plainly, voice breaking. “It’s not enough. It’s never enough.”

It wouldn’t bring life back to Phil’s eyes and send the second Butcher Army away, or make Tommy reappear beneath his house in that ridiculous burrow of his and make sure he never stepped foot into the prison. It wouldn’t stop Wilbur’s descent into madness and the consequential blade stuck through him. 

Nothing would anymore.

He was alone, the lone survivor of their mishmashed family. Nothing to remember them by save for a few knickknacks and faded memories, and three gravestones. 

_A friend._

_A hero._

_A brother._

The disc he spent hours hunting for, scouring dusty cave systems and abandoned dungeons, plays out a haunting melody over the breeze. 

“There’s that other way,” he says.

_There is. You can redeem two of them. Two extra chances at life._

“Three, really,” he mutters.

It was a forbidden practice, banned by Dream himself, although his words didn’t hold sway around here any longer. 

An eye for an eye. A life for a life. If one was willing to sacrifice, give up a valuable shard of their life force, someone could be brought back.

_You only have three lives. Bringing back more than two would kill you._

“You expect me to pick?” He asks harshly. His oldest friend, the valiant warrior who was always at his side, sword at the ready. Or an insufferable child that had somehow wormed his way into his heart? Or the man who knew him better than he knew himself, the one he considered his brother. 

“I couldn’t do that. Couldn’t do that to them. It’s not right.”

_Then how shall you proceed? Just one?_

“No,” he says harshly. “All or nothing. It’s only right.”

The three of them deserved another chance. It wasn’t their time. Wilbur could heal, could be saved. Tommy could thrive, and Phil could look after both of them. They still had a chance, still had decades full of prosperity stretching before them. 

_You’ll die._

“All or nothing,” Techno says again, grinning weakly. 

He’s already written the letter to Ranboo, tucked away in his lopsided shack. It says everything he needs to say, and it’s the only person that he bothered writing a letter too. 

Techno chooses Phil first, shuffling so he’s knelt over his makeshift grave. It’s the newest, the dirt still freshly tilled. 

It seemed only fitting. His only friend, the first to give his life too. 

He drags the blade across his palm, blood welling up and spilling across the dirt. The ancient words well up easily, and from ancient texts he’d spent hours pouring over into the late hours of the night.

There’s a brief flash of light, accompanied by a blinding ache of pain. It slices straight through his abdomen, and he can hardly breathe past the ever-consuming agony.

But Phil is before him. Looking utterly dazed but _alive._ “Ey, Phil,” Techno says weakly, tears suddenly pricking at his eyes. 

“Mate,” he says uncertainly. “What the hell happened. I just- there was the second butcher army, right? And they...”

Techno waves a hand, head swimming. “You died. And well, I found a way to bring you back. All of you.”

He can already feel the energy within him evaporating like water to a sieve, and he shuffles over to the next grave, ignoring Phil. 

Wilbur’s. His closest friend, who’d saved him more times than he can count. They had an understanding, of sorts, even near the end. An unspoken promise to always look out for each other, to protect the other.

Techno had to one-up him one last time.

He slices his palm again, dousing the dirt and saying the words quickly.

It’s worse, this time. He’s sent to the ground, panting, and a warm set of hands grip his back. Soon, they’re joined by a second colder pair. 

“ _Techno?_ ” Wilbur asks incredulously. “Christ, you alright?”

“I’m splendid,” he groans, composing himself a tad. “‘Missed you,” he says weakly, wrapping his old friend into a tight hug.

Phil lingers back uncertainly, face a mixture of joy and pain as he appraises his son. His eyes flit over to Techno, concern dampening his gaze. 

“Look, I’m thrilled to not be dead and everything-“

“God, me too,” Wilbur interjects. “You don’t even want to know how many solitaire games I’ve played with Schlatt up there.”

Techno laughs, and Phil continues. “But how safe is this resurrection method of yours? It’s clearly taking a toll out of you.”

“S’fine,” he shrugs. “Just a bit of taxing magic, nothing a good sleep can’t fix,” Techno lies. 

Wilbur frowns, scrubbing a hand through Techno’s hair, and he bats away the touch with an eye roll. “Well then, shall we bring back the child? And I reckon you and I pay Dream a visit after this,”

“Already taken care of,” Techno nods to his bloodstained sword and Wilbur offers up a proud, razor sharp grin. 

“Right,” he says. “Last one.” 

Tommy’s grave. 

He’d told him to die like a hero once, amidst a war stained with blood and Withers and betrayal. Techno expected for the brash sixteen-year old to go out in a valiant blaze of glory decades from now, not be beaten to death in a prison cell by the man he despised. 

It’s an unfitting conclusion to their story, a wrong one. Out of all of them, Tommy deserves this second chance the most. 

Deserved a childhood untainted by wars and shitty familial figures. Without Techno there to cause chaos and war. 

His blood comes forth easily, and he knows the words by heart now, closing his eyes and stammering them out. 

The difference is staggering. 

White noise echoes through his head and he falls face-first into the snow, pain tearing across his limbs, coursing through his veins. It’s worse than anything he’s felt before, worse than the time he’d been Withered. 

There’s a blip through the agony, a thought of _he deserves this,_ but the moment of clarity is lost as soon as it’s found.

Wilbur is screaming something, Phil’s hands roughly shaking him, and he hears Tommy’s familiar screech.

Despite it all, he grins. It had worked. It really worked. They were all here. 

Death calls to him like an old friend, itching at the edges of his consciousness. There would be no eluding her this time. She’d finally come to collect her dues, and he would greet the afterlife. 

“...you hear me?” Wilbur is saying, and Techno squints, making out a familiar moo of brown hair and a pale face. 

“You said it was safe,” Phil accuses. “You said-“

Tommy looks between them all. “The fuck is going on?”

“It was worth it,” Techno says weakly.

“Giving up all three of your lives for us isn’t worth it. There should’ve been another way.”

“Phil,” he says. “Phil. Look at me.” The man does, barely meeting his gaze through the hurt and sadness across face. “It’s okay. Thank you, for everything.”

He meets Wilbur next, the man clenching his hand in a death grip and not even caring about the tears streaming down his face. “You’re a sick bastard,” he says. “You- why? You should’ve left me there, should’ve just brought back Phil and Tommy.”

“I couldn’t do that,” he says plainly. “And you’re a better brother to him than I could ever be. Don’t- don’t forget it. Any of it.” He says, not really talking about Tommy anymore. 

Understanding flashes across Wilbur’s face anyway, and he gives a grim nod. “Don’t say shit like that. You were a better brother to both of us then I could ever dream of being. You- God, Techno. Give Schlatt hell for me, would you?”

He grins, before pivoting to cough into his hand. It comes away wet with blood. His time is approaching, fast. 

Tommy’s stood back, appraising the entire situation with wide eyes. There’s still a scar along his cheek, and Techno wishes he could go back and drag out Dream’s death even longer, really make the man suffer.

“Welcome back, Theseus.”

“Technoblade,” he says, distress coloring his voice. “You- no. Don’t you say goodbye. You can’t be dying right now. You’re fucking Technoblade, for fucks sake. What happened to ‘Technoblade never dies,’ huh?”

“I’m sorry,” he says simply. “For all of it, for this. For putting you in this situation to begin with. I should’ve-“ Breath eludes his lungs, and he gasps for air, Wilbur’s hand rubbing circles along his back. 

“I don’t know. I was wrong about you though, Tommy. You not- you’re not Theseus. Not really. You’re just a kid. And you deserve to be happy.”

“I said don’t say goodbye, you asshole.” Tommy snapped, tears welling up. “Undo the magic, send me back! I don’t care.”

Darkness began to tug at the corner of his vision, and he could feel something. A higher calling, an escape from his mortal pain. It was time. 

“Take care of them for me, would you?” He asks, nodding to Phil and Wilbur. “They’ll-“

_Goodbye, Blood God._

Breath eludes him once more but this time he lets go, eyes fogging over and focused on something beyond the sky, and this time he slips off into the promised eternity of peace. 

-

There’s no ghost, and it makes sense as much as Wilbur hates it. Techno was never one to do things half-assed. If he was dead, he was dead.

Still, some mornings when he wakes he’ll find a dog-eared copy of a book tossed across the couch. Or there will be a still-warm cup of tea sitting by the window nobody can account for. One night, he’s exhausted and trekking across the tundra when a zombie gets the jump on him. 

One second, it’s gnarled claws are digging into his shoulder and Wilbur panics, because he _really should’ve brought a sword or slipped on some armor_. The next, the monster is thrown back against the tree with a gaping wound tearing its way down it’s throat. 

Wilbur sighs despite himself, and grins. 

His brother may be gone, but there’s still shards of him left behind. 

(He pointedly ignores the time he was brawling with Tommy, absolutely pummeling the kid and a few moments from victory he tripped over a branch that was definitely not there a minute ago. Wilbur can practically hear Techno laughing from the afterlife).

**Author's Note:**

> shorter than my usual stuff but I had fun writing this even tho it’s not very good lol. thanks for reading


End file.
